


Nocturnal Rendezvous

by SophieRipley



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Comfort, F/F, F/M, Fear, Implied Emotional Cheating, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 03:44:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8562580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophieRipley/pseuds/SophieRipley
Summary: Judy wakes up from a terrible nightmare, and seeks her partner-instead of her wife-for comfort.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that this story is NOT up to my usual standard. It wasn't framed terribly well and wasn't well thought-out. I am aware of this.

_The rainforest was dark around Judy, the rain hard and cold; some distant part of her understood that the rain was far too cold, but that part was pushed into the far back of her mind.  First and foremost was stark panic, as she was being chased across the massive limb of a huge tree.  Her pursuer was a jaguar many times her weight, fur black and eyes a feral yellow-green.  One eye was marred by a nasty scratch, but it didn’t hamper his vision at all.  Judy tore across the tree branch at full speed, her heart beating hard and fast, struggling not to slip on the wet bark._

_The jaguar was close, too close—she could feel his hot breath on her tail as he surged behind her snarling in a savage rage, and as she reached the end of the branch she knew she was about to die._

_“NICK!” she screamed, looking around for the support of her partner and best friend…and found he was gone.  She’d been abandoned to her fate._

_She didn’t have to wait long as Manchas reached her and pounced._

Judy gasped, sat up sharply, struggled to gain her breath in the darkness of her bedroom.  She stifled a cry into her fist, and leaped from her bed as silently as she could so as to not wake the figure sleeping beside her.  She fled the bedroom, went clear into the kitchen where she finally turned on a light and collapsed against the stove in a ball, her face in her paws.

She took only a moment to continue gasping for breath before she reached for the cordless phone on the kitchen counter, and dialed a number she knew she’d be able to remember in her sleep.

It rang six times before a hoarse, tired voice called from the other end.  “Officer Wilde,” said her partner from across town.

“Nick,” panted Judy, “I’m so sorry.  Please…I realize it’s late, but please meet me.”

There was a pause as he drew in a breath and peered at his bedside clock.  Then he let the breath go in a huff.  “Nng.  Kay.  But you’re coming to me this time, damn it.  The diner down the road.”  He hung up. 

Judy put the phone back on the hook and crept back into her bedroom silently, gathering a simple outfit to wear out without waking her spouse who lay still, sleeping deeply enough that Judy needn’t have bothered.

The roads were sparsely populated at the early hour, only nocturnal creatures to be seen going to and from various errands.  As such she made it to the twenty-four hour diner down the road from Nick’s apartment with little trouble.  It was a cozy place they’d been to many times before, but rarely at two in the morning.  Nick was waiting for her nursing a coffee and wearing shorts and a wrinkly tee shirt, and the waitress, a red fox, smiled at her.

“Tea, Judy?” asked the waitress kindly.

Judy nodded.  “Yes please, Mrs. Wilde.”  She slipped into the booth beside Nick and leaned into him as he tossed an arm around her.

“What was it this time?” asked Nick as his mother brought Judy her tea.

“Manchas.”  Judy shuddered, but was feeling a great deal better for the walk and for seeing Nick.  “He was after me, and…you cut and run.  He cornered me at the end of a branch in Rainforest District, and without your help I couldn’t escape.”

Nick tightened his arm around her.  “Carrots…sweetheart, Manchas is a good guy.  We have lunch with him every third Tuesday.”

“I know, but my subconscious doesn’t care.  It only cares that I was in terrible danger.”

“It’s been four years, Fluff.  You’re safe.  As safe as you can be in our profession, anyway.  Besides, Manchas loves you.”

“I know,” repeated Judy, feeling miserable.  She sipped her tea.  “But I can’t help my dreams.”

Nick sipped his coffee and was silent for a moment, then he nodded.  “…yeah.  I know, Fluff.  I get them too sometimes.”

They were silent for a long few minutes.  Judy worked her way through her cup of tea and Nick stroked her back soothingly, and Judy’s terror from twenty minutes prior faded to a much more manageable fatigue.

Nick had become accustomed to these sessions.  The first time Judy had woken from a debilitating nightmare, Nick had been nearby:  they were at Nick’s apartment working on a difficult case, and Nick made Judy take a nap.  She’d been awake longer than he had, after all, and needed the break.  Since then, it had become habit for her to call him when she had a particularly bad dream so that he could help her come down from the residual terror. 

He of course had nightmares too, as he’d told Judy, but he’d learned long before meeting her how to handle them himself.

Nick had expected the arrangement to change when Judy started dating the vixen who would become her wife, but no matter how serious Judy and Bridget had gotten Judy always came back to Nick, unfailingly and unerringly.

Presently, Nick’s left paw, the one rubbing Judy’s back, was returned to its place nestled around his coffee cup.

“How are you feeling now, Carrots?”  His smile was wry, almost rueful even, as he still thought about Judy’s wife.

“Better,” sighed Judy.  “Lots better.  I’ll be able to sleep.  Your mom makes the best dandelion tea.”

“She does at that, Fluff.  Go home, sleep well, and come to work in the morning refreshed.”  He returned the hug she gave him, and then she left a slow kiss at the corner of his muzzle, her lips and his touching only barely.  “I’ll get the tab.”

“Thanks, Nick.  See you in the morning.”  She got up to leave.

“Hey Carrots?” called Nick.  She turned back at the door.  “Text me when you get back safe.”  Her smile was sweet, if tired, and then she was gone.

After a moment, Mrs. Wilde sat down across from him.  “She okay, son?” she asked casually.

Nick nodded.  “Another nightmare.  She’ll sleep now.”

“Now that she’s seen you.”  She was implying something, and Nick raised an eyebrow at her.

“I’m her partner,” said Nick, taking a drink of his coffee as an excuse to look away from his mother.  “Her best friend.  It’s only natural.”

His mom nodded.  “You two should start dating.”

“She’s married, mom, you know that.”

“Hmm.”  She nodded sagely.  “Yes.  I keep forgetting.”  She stood and took Nick’s empty cup at the same time as Judy’s.  “Drinks on the house, kit.  Go home, get some sleep.”

Nick got up, went over and kissed his mom on the cheek, and left.  It only took him a couple minutes to get home and he didn’t sleep until Judy texted him to let him know she’d gotten home safely.

Judy did indeed text him the moment she returned to her room, and then she undressed and climbed back in bed next to her wife.

The silver-furred vixen stirred next to her, turned over and pulled Judy into her chest.

“You okay?” mumbled the fox, sleepily.

“Judy nodded.  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Where’d you go to?”

Judy closed her eyes and drew in a deep, steadying breath.  To Bridget it would sound sleepy and content.

“Kitchen,” lied Judy.  “I needed some tea.”

“Mmm,” hummed Bridget.  She was asleep again in only a moment.

For Judy, sleep wouldn’t come for awhile.  In the darkness of her bedroom with her wife’s warm arms wrapped tightly around her torso, she couldn’t help but to think of Nick.

**Author's Note:**

> I know I'm gunning pretty hard with this kind of story lately. Don't ask me why, I have no idea. Constructive criticism is welcome...I stress the "constructive".


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